Friday, August 20, 2010

Romance author Nikki Logan gives us the low-down on the conference Down-Under!

Romance Writers of Australia celebrated their 19th annual conference at Coogee Beach, Sydney, over the weekend of 13-15 August.

Like the US, conference is a big date on the Australian calendar and anticipation starts building from new year. So the first day of conference was thrumming with energy.

I've cherry-picked a few of my favourite workshops to highlight.

Well known Australian radio/television presenter, standup comedian and now author, Wendy Harmer, gave an inspiring presentation for the published author group about writing romance/rom elements within Australia's east-coast literature scene in which her work has been simultaneously derided and applauded and the extra scrutiny of her as a popular, public figure. Funny, fast-paced and entirely irreverent.

Wendy was preceeded by Dr John Barletta, an amazing and engaging psych professional who analysed the state we all aim for with our writing. We call it being in 'the zone' but in psych terms it's called 'flow' - that place on an aptitude continuum where skill and challenge and engagement hover in perfect harmonic suspension and allow us to fully immerse in our work and be uber-productive. The good news? You can
train yourself to get there.

The screenwriter of Australia's massively successful television drama series 'UnderBelly' chatted to us about her scriptwriting process but more particularly about the challenges of fictionalising 'true crime' - not the least managing the expectations of research subjects who come from Australias leading violent crime families.

Debora Dixon held a full house of pubb'd and unpubbd writers enthraled with all things GMC with a Heroes Journey chaser. Deb is a fantastic presenter and her talk was informal and comfortable.

Vicky Lewis-Thompson spoke on the virtues of 'feeling fear but doing it anyway' and forcing yourself out of your comfortzone with an hilarious range of OMG bad-dream moments in publishing. It was a wonderful equaliser for everyone in the room who'd ever said something dopey in a lift or walked into a pitch session with their dress bundled into their knickers.

We enjoyed a ten strong panel of US and Australian publishing reps and agents and compared their opinions of the status of the international industry, then split down into individual workshops.

I'm always a particular fan of specialist sessions at conference - where you can see and hear things that you normally wouldn't have access to. One of my favourite sessions was by a forensic specialist from the New South Wales' coroner's office; while graphic, it was very honest and open and took participants through some of the most familiar and shocking parts of being a coroner.

Right afterwards we had a fantastic session by a weapons and defence specialist and his team of 'meat-men' who came along to teach us everthing we wanted to know about staging fight-scenes. He showed us how you can make a weapon from nothing, what kinds of blades work best for different situations, how to strangle, buckle, take down an assailant. Amazingly eye-opening (I may never go outside again) but wonderful for our stories.

Every year RWAus runs a charity fundraiser lunch on the final day of conference. This year it was a Silver theme for ovarian cancer. 250 women (and one man) managed to raise over $10,000 for development of an early detection system for Ovarian Cancer thanks to an amazing $5K donation from Harlequin Australia.

All in all a fabulous conference with a high level of new participants. RWAus conferences just go from strength to strength. All speakers acknowledged the very high level of support, comraderie and positivity at Australian conference and this year was no exception.

Sunday, August 08, 2010

Major congrats to Romance author JESSICA HART! Cinderella's Wedding Wish took top honours in the Traditional Romance category of the National Reader's Choice Award. The winners were announced at a special ceremony at the Romance Writers of America National Conference held in Orlando, Florida.

Alex Casali cut ties with his roots long ago. Now he's a Texas cowboy. But even a Stetson can't disguise the Italian fire in his eyes.

Hired to run a quilting course at the A Bar A ranch, Allie is appalled when a brooding cowboy accuses her of trespassing. Manners make a man, and strong single mom Allie wants nothing to do with arrogant Mr. Casali.

But when her little daughter utters her first words in a year to Alex, Allie begins to wonder whether there's more behind his smoldering gray eyes than she first thought.

Gabi Turner is on the Greek island of Milos to find Andreas Simonides—the father of her late sister's baby twins.

CEO Andreas is more comfortable chartering his yacht than pushing a pram. But he knows who the real daddy is—his brother!

Waiting for his brother to arrive, Andreas is soon changing nappies and singing nursery rhymes. Andreas thinks he and Gabi make a good team, but what will keep them together when the twins are reunited with their father?

Waking up in Vegas with a hunky man by her side and a gold band on her finger, impulsive Serena thinks this might be one snap decision too far! She sneaks out of the honeymoon suite and back to her single life….

Politician Jonas must have been bewitched by Serena's beauty and passion to propose after just one date. It could spell disaster for his campaign—unless he can convince her to make their hasty marriage last a lifetime!

With his war-torn kingdom in tatters, Sheikh Alim El-Kanar is injured, alone and believes he has no future. Until beautiful nurse Hana saves his life and gives him hope.

Hana thought her duty would be over once Alim recovered, but then he asks her to pose as his wife! Hana knows it can only be for show—she can never truly be the sheikh's wife. But destiny has other ideas….